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When a person thinks about the Internet, they probably think of high-speed internet. It is true that some people think that DSL and dial-up internet are high-speed internet. How many people think of just cable internet when thinking of high-speed internet? One interesting development in high-speed internet is cable internet. Cable television has been around for almost 50 years, what about cable internet? For more than 15 years cable internet has been available to some areas of the country. In the late 1990s cable companies began to build on their television success and started to install cable internet into homes. Maybe the idea came about for no apparent reason but like any capitalistic idea, increased competition is good for the consumer. 

Over a decade ago, cable companies envisioned a network with the ability to increase capacity and upgrade technology. Cable internet is delivered over unique coaxial cable which contains new technology to allow you to receive faster data. Cable internet has been around since the invention of the cable modem in the 1980s but transfer rates were slow like dial-up. Early internet providers such as America Online (AOL), Prodigy, CompuServe and Microsoft understood the advantages of having internet content delivered over a cable. As the cable modem was developed further, cable companies were very aggressive during the late 1990s upgrading their cable with new technology enhanced cable. 

The early dial-up companies also realized that bandwidth and content were important to increase membership base. With the influx of money behind these newly created companies, new technologies were spanned from innovating thinkers. The construction of a superior infrastructure took place in the 1990s around mostly urban areas. Although, many consumers waited until the early 2000s to truly benefit from this build-out of infrastructure that included thousands of miles of optic cable to deliver cable internet. In most areas of the country, this early infrastructure build-out of cable internet was directed by cable companies, which had legal rights to the new technology.

Many cable internet companies worry today about 4G technology and the explosion of smart phones but the growth rate of cable internet is still very high. The future of cable internet is becoming brighter with everyday of new technological innovations and the consumer is the beneficiary. The cable company's goal was to create a network of exceptional data transfer rates that could continue to make consumers happy with shorter download times. Cable internet is how you will experience your high-speed internet of the upcoming future and beyond.